James climbed through the hatch and stepped into air that smelled of fresh tar and open salt instead of rot and old blood. Before he could even straighten fully, the deck caught him by surprise.

It didn’t sound anything like the deck that had limped into the island days ago.

Sailors he only half recognized hauled lines at the foremast without needing the order repeated. Sawyer stood with one hand resting against the new yard, no longer hunting flaws, just checking it the way a man might rest a hand on a horse he’d come to trust.

Grey had a chart pinned against the rail and was already muttering objections to decisions he’d apparently made earlier. Farrow moved along the cannons, counting tackles under his breath with the suspicion he gave anything involving powder.

Above them, in the rigging, a figure clung to the topsail yard despite having absolutely no reason to be there.

"Kit."

Briggs’s voice drifted over from the mainmast, calm and steady. The kind of calm that usually meant trouble was seconds away.

"Get yer feet on a deck before I put them there myself."

Cudjoe passed carrying a coil of rope over one shoulder. For once, he looked like a man whose problems had finally balanced.

James handed over a rolled chart as he walked. Grey caught it without even looking up.

He let himself exactly one breath to take in the rest.

The noise.

More boots crossing the deck. More voices complaining about the heat.

The ship felt different. Alive in a way she hadn’t for a long time. She finally had enough crew to breathe properly.

"Aye," he murmured to nobody in particular. "We’ll do."

Then he crossed to the rail.

Thatch’s sloop, the Revenge, sat in the harbor looking like she had something to prove, and she’d chosen a terrible morning to prove it.

She rode low in the water. Far too low for a sloop her size.

James understood why the moment he started to count gunports and kept counting long past the point any sensible shipbuilder would’ve stopped.

Eight lined her side in two ugly rows, sixteen altogether, packed so tightly together that the hull looked less like a ship and more like a clenched fist.

Near the bow sat a mortar, lashed down and gleaming with fresh grease, black and round as something dredged out of a place worse than hell.

"Jesus, Mary, and every saint that’ll have me!"

James bellowed across the water, loud enough that his own crew turned to see what had finally cracked him.

"Thatch, you mad bastard, did you arm a sloop or marry one to an arsenal?"

Cudjoe remained entirely unimpressed. He’d distrusted how easily this job had fallen into their hands from the beginning, and sixteen guns bolted onto a hull that size hadn’t improved his opinion.

Thatch’s laughter carried clean across the harbor.

He shouted back, "Sixteen cannons and a mortar, Calloway! She’ll punch a hole through anythin’ fool enough to look at her wrong, and she’ll do it before your brig’s finished runnin’ out her first broadside!"

James felt the duty to defend his lass, "Sixteen cannons on a hull that size and ye’ll roll her over the first time ye fire all of them! That’s a bloody powder keg!"

"Better a powder keg than a brig that wheezes every time the wind glances in her direction!"

"My lass doesn’t wheeze, Thatch. That’s the thunder of eighteen cannons demandin’ respect!"

"Demand all the respect ye like. She’s still slower leavin’ harbor than I am!"

James threw both hands into the air. "Compensatin’ for somethin’, are you? Crammin’ this many cannons and a mortar onto a hull built for half that?"

Thatch spread his arms.

"Compensatin’? I’ve got the biggest stick in the harbor and ye’re callin’ it compensation?"

James slapped a hand against the railing. "Biggest stick, smallest ship! Ye’ll tip yourself into the sea the first time you loose a full broadside, and I’ll be the one draggin’ you back out!"

"She’ll hold. Unlike some men’s tempers, my lass performs when the moment demands it!"

"You named that mortar after yer pride, didn’t ye?"

"I named her after nothin’. She speaks well enough for herself."

"So does mine, and mine doesn’t need sixteen mouths to do it!"

Laughter rolled across both decks.

Before it fully faded, Thatch leaned against the rail. The grin remained, but something sharper sat behind it. His eyes swept over the Bloody Rose’s crowded deck, quick and measuring, gone almost before James noticed.

"Last I heard, you came back from yer last run two sloops short and half a crew lighter. Hope this hunt goes better."

"Last I heard, ye’re still sailin’ a borrowed sloop under another man’s flag. We’ll see whose name’s worth more by sundown."

That one landed.

James saw it, even if the grin never slipped.

For a moment the joking vanished. Two captains looked at one another across the water and quietly weighed how far the other intended to go.

Then Thatch barked a laugh and slapped the rail. "If weather or bad luck parts us, rendezvous stays at the cay three leagues short of the interception. Same as the chart."

James nodded once.

He then bellowed back, "If that mortar of yers manages to hit anythin’ besides the sky, Thatch, I’ll buy you a drink in Havana myself."

"And if yer brig manages to keep pace with me, I’ll allow it."

"Try not to get yerself killed showin’ off. I’ve grown fond of havin’ somebody worth insultin’."

"Same to you, Calloway. Wouldn’t want all the glory for myself. Gives the rest of you nothin’ to talk about afterward."

They locked each other’s gaze a second longer than the banter required.

Then both turned away at exactly the same time.

Neither willing to be the first.

"Right then!"

James’s voice cracked across the Rose. Every trace of humor vanished.

"Let go the bow line! Let go the stern!"

Lines splashed into the harbor and came back dripping over the rail.

"Loose the foresail! Man the braces! Move!"

Canvas dropped and filled with a sharp crack. The deck tilted beneath James’s boots as the Rose leaned into the wind for the first time in days.

Cudjoe was already moving, filling every gap the orders left behind. "You two, on that brace! Dinnae stand there admirin’ it! Briggs, get that boy down off the yard before he learns to fly! Sawyer, keep yer eye on that splice. I want to know the second it even thinks about creakin’!"

The Rose groaned beneath it all and came alive.

Water hissed differently along her hull now that she was free of the mooring and moving under her own will again. She was finding her rhythm.

James stepped to the wheel. The spokes felt smooth beneath his hands. Smoother than they had the first night he’d gripped them while another man’s memories settled into his skull.

The ship answered before he’d even finished the turn.

As the Rose swung toward open water, Nassau spread behind her stern. James gave himself one glance back at the place that had nearly killed him half a dozen different ways in three days.

The feeling wasn’t quite regret.

Anne and Meg stood together at the harbor’s edge.

Anne’s hair caught the sunlight like a struck match. Beside her, Meg stood silent and watchful.

Both women had their arms crossed in exactly the same posture, as if they’d fought over everything else that morning and somehow agreed on this one thing.

Neither waved.

Neither needed to.

They had come to the water, and for those two that counted as a declaration all by itself.

James looked a moment longer than necessary before forcing himself to stop.

Farther down the waterfront stood Hornigold with several of his crew behind him. He watched the Rose and the Revenge leave harbor with patience.

Off to one side, far enough from Hornigold to carry meaning, stood another man James was fairly certain he’d never officially met.

He didn’t need an introduction.

Jennings, unless every description he’d heard had been wrong.

He watched with subtle attention.

The two men stood at opposite ends of the harbor like rivals who already knew where they’d stand when the next fight came.

Two leaders of the pirates. Two rivals.

Both watching a brigantine and a sloop sail to meet their destiny.

And James was leaving both of them behind without choosing either side.

Politics could wait until he returned. There was work ahead that didn’t care who was in charge of Nassau this season.

James lifted one hand from the wheel and raised it high.

An open wave.

Clear enough that exactly the people he intended would see it.

Anne lifted her chin in answer.

Meg didn’t move.

For her, that was the same thing.

Hornigold and Jennings received nothing. Not even a nod.

Then the harbor mouth slipped behind them.

The water beneath the Rose changed from the murky green of the shallows to a deep blue with no visible bottom. The wind coming off the open sea felt different too. Sharper, freer, carrying only salt and whatever waited beyond the horizon.

Ahead, the Revenge rose alongside them. Her overloaded sails caught the same wind at the same moment.

Both ships found their stride together while Nassau shrank behind them and the Florida coast waited somewhere ahead.

Beyond five Guarda Costa sloops.

Beyond whatever the voice believed was worth in Fate and a question mark it still hadn’t bothered to explain.

The Bloody Rose and the Revenge sailed out of Nassau side by side.

Neither captain looked back again.

===

Author’s Note

"How’s it goin’, lads. Pinaria’s speakin’."

Here we are, end of volume one. Thirty and some Chapters about James being throw into the Caribbean with a bitchy message from a mysterious voice and figuring out how to be a pirate. The fact you guys stuck with this premise up to here means a lot for me.

In a website with so many works out there, some probably much better than mine, I wanted to thank you lads for taking your time to read the words put into these Chapters. My ’pa always used to say there is nothing more precious to a person than their time, and the fact you guys were around here for dozens of minutes or hours to read everything instead of other hobbies or whatnot. Really appreciate it.

In a better world, I’d be rich and leave every Chapter free. Unfortunately, that ain’t quite possible innit. So far it is mostly a hobby, but I hope one day I can make enough money out writing to live comfortably, and for that, I’ll sign up to their premium system soon.

I won’t talk much about it since yer folks probably knows how it works, but it is what it is. If you lads have the condition and naturally the interest, please consider to keep supporting my work. Not only it helps me a lot, but I can pump more Chapters like crazy if I can focus solely on writing and not a boring ass office work.

And for those that can’t, a power stone dropped here or there and a review is also great help. Really appreciate it.

Now, onto James’ more crazy ass adventures in the Caribbean. The next volume will bring out the more kingdom building and fleet aspects of this work, with of course, a great deal of insane humor.

Och lads, thanks for listenin’.